Every month I review my goals and reflect on my progress, practices, and mindset. Looking back, I note that in 7 of the 9 last months, I was pretty disappointed in myself. There were always lots that wasn't going to plan. Everything always took longer to finish than I’d expected.
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But I also do a quarterly review. I ask myself ~the same questions as in the monthly reflections, but over a longer time horizon. Looking back now, I see that in 3 of the 4 last quarters, I’d been thrilled (and surprised) by how much I’d achieved and how well things were going!
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One common pattern each quarter: “3 months ago, I wasn’t even thinking about XYZ, but now I’ve done XYZ++!”
It’s odd that my quarterly reflections are so consistently bright, while my monthly reflections are so consistently glum. I’m not sure how to explain this contradiction!
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Same. I now think of it as: always track what you're doing (weekly/monthly), but save the analysis and reflection for longer horizons (quarterly/yearly). Otherwise too short to build meaningful narratives
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I really like the track/analyze distinction. I find that weekly/monthly course changes in response to those reflections really *are* helpful, though, and really do add up! I wouldn't want to make those changes only quarterly. Not sure how to have my cake and eat it too.
Possibly a distinction to be made between checking in on the success of systems vs checking in on the success of goals? It seems like the former can be done more frequently to make course corrections, while the later needs to be done on a longer time scale
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I see what you mean! I still make tactical adjustments on a weekly/monthly basis...I guess what I really meant was "reserve your self-judgment for longer time horizons" 😅
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